UK Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab resigns after workplace harassment allegations

First modification: 04/21/2023 – 15:39

The Deputy Prime Minister and head of the Justice portfolio, Dominic Raab, will leave the UK Government Cabinet. This Friday, Raab officially announced his resignation after being accused of workplace harassment and abuse of power after ato internal and independent investigation of eight accusations, carried out by the renowned lawyer Adam Tolley.

The 48-page report, released on Friday, accuses Raab of acting in an “intimidating” and “aggressive” manner and exercising “an abuse or abuse of power in a humiliating manner” against his workers as deputy prime minister and justice minister, and also when he held the Foreign Affairs portfolio, between 2019 and 2021.

“He went beyond what was necessary or appropriate in providing critical feedback, and also insulting, in the sense of making non-constructive critical comments about the quality of the work done,” said Adam Tolley, the lawyer in charge of the investigation.

In his resignation letter, the deputy prime minister assured that he had already promised to resign in the face of “any finding of harassment” and, therefore, he has done so. However, Saab flatly denied having committed any type of abuse and rejected the content of the investigation – dismissing six of the eight testimonies.

“I believe that the contradictory findings that he exposes are wrong and set a dangerous precedent for the conduct of good government. Ministers must be able to exercise direct supervision over senior officials who carry out important negotiations on behalf of the British people (…). And secondly, ministers must be able to express substantive criticism during their meetings with these senior officials in order to set the necessary standards and push through the reforms that the public expects of us,” Raab explains on the subject.

Accusations of abusive behavior and ill-treatment have dogged the conservative for years, but they have never gone this far.

“I never once insulted or yelled at officials, let alone threatened, pointed or threw anything at them,” Raab said in his defense.

However, the report has considered abuse beyond direct physical and verbal aggression, such as humiliation or attempts to exert pressure. After the dissemination of the former minister’s letter, his critics say that it cannot be considered an “apology”, due to the tone used.

“I’m sorry but I’m not sorry. A resignation of the kind we could expect. Beyond the ‘no apology’, let’s think of all those civil servants who have had to put up with Raab’s control and behavior for so long,” said Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC, the largest union of civil servants in the United Kingdom.

In the midst of the scandal, Raab has assured that he will continue to support the British government and its prime minister, Rishi Sunak.

A blow to the Conservative party

This news complicates Sunak’s attempts to clean up the image of the Conservative Party -after various scandals such as parties during the confinement of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson-.

Saab, a hardline party politician, is one of the prime minister’s closest allies, but the political price of keeping him would have been high. Especially, because this new scandal could negatively affect the political formation ahead of the municipal elections in May.

However, the president expressed solidarity with his cabinet partner. In a letter to Raab, Sunak accepted sadness at his resignation, congratulating him on keeping his promise to resign if the independent report revealed evidence of harassment.

“You have kept your word. But it is clear that there have been errors in the process that have negatively affected all those involved. We should learn from this to better manage these matters in the future,” the chief executive wrote in the letter.

A situation and reaction that has cost the prime minister criticism, especially from the opposition Labor Party.

“This demonstrates the continued weakness of the prime minister. Sunak should never have appointed Raab in the first place, Starmer said. And then he did not remove him and even today it is Raab who resigns rather than act as prime minister,” Keir Starmer stated, leader of the Labor Party, to the television channel ‘Sky News’.

There are several conservative ministers and politicians who have suffered the same fate as Saab in the last year and a half. Gavin Williamson had to leave the Ministry of Education also for his abuse against employees and Nadhim Zahawi, former party president, also had to leave the formation for hiding his fiscal problems with the British Treasury.

According to the newspaper ‘Times’, the British legislator Alex Chalk, current Minister of Defense Acquisitions, will be the new Minister of Justice of the United Kingdom and Oliver Dowden, the new Deputy Prime Minister.

With Reuters and local media